Invoking Imbolc
by crochetaway
Summary: Hermione catches Draco doing nature magic and figures out he might not be as heartless as everyone thinks. Draco knows she's watching, but tries not to make it obvious. Later that day he anonymously drops off the flowers on her desk in one of their classes. Oneshot. Complete.


**A/N: Written for Dramione Fanfiction Forums Secret Admirer Fic Exchange! Prompt was: Hermione catches Draco doing nature magic and figures out he might not be as heartless as everyone thinks. Draco knows she's watching, but tries not to make it obvious. Later that day he anonymously drops off the flowers/etc on her desk in one of their classes.**

 **Thanks to brownlark42 for letting me bounce ideas off her!**

 **Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.**

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Draco Malfoy had a plan, that plan was to finally get Hermione Granger to notice him as something other than the Death Eater. Other than the Slytherin who bullied her throughout their school years. Other than the pureblood elitist. Draco wanted Granger to notice him the way he noticed her.

He first noticed her at the Yule Ball in their fourth year. She was breathtaking in her floaty periwinkle gown, he couldn't keep his eyes off her.

Fifth year, when he and his goons had her and her friends at wand point in Umbridge's office, he could barely contain his rage at Crabbe for holding her so roughly. And later when Crabbe bragged about how good her soft body felt against his, Draco had hexed him.

Sixth year was a blur of stress and tears.

Seventh year she wasn't at school. Then at Easter he had to watch her get tortured in his own home by his psychotic aunt. It was not a pleasant memory.

During the Final Battle, she had insisted that Potter and Weasley go back to save him and Goyle. She was not only beautiful, but compassionate and kind. She could have left them to burn like Crabbe did, but she came back for them. She was his saving grace. She had saved him in more ways than one.

It was seeing her tortured and not give anything up that he realized that this pure-blood elitism was nonsense. He knew that he would have given up after one round of the Crucio curse applied as heavily has his aunt applied it toward Granger. She had withheld several rounds, and being cut with a cursed blade. And still managed to either lie, or not tell everything. If she, a lowly mudblood, someone who he had always been told was filth, was strong enough to endure all that, he knew that there could be no difference between them. He was sure that he would not have held up nearly as well as Granger did under torture by his sadistic aunt. Seeing her blood stain the floor of his ancestral home, running in the same color as his own, sealed the deal. That was the day Draco stopped believing in blood superiority.

Now that they were back for their eighth year, he finally had a chance to make her notice him. All of the returning eighth years were sharing a dorm, no more houses for them. And while they were lumped in with the rest of the seventh years for classes, they tended to eat, study, sit with each other.

Granger had been polite to him all year, but distant, never striking up a conversation with him. Her goons weren't back this year, and she kept her head down, focused on her studies. There were only five eighth years back, Granger and Longbottom from Gryffindor, Abbott from Hufflepuff, Draco and Theo Nott from Slytherin, all of the Ravenclaws had passed their N.E.W.T.'s the previous year. Draco and Theo had both been marked as Death Eaters the year before, being a Death Eater and attempting to study for your N.E.W.T.'s did not go well.

Imbolc was coming up, Draco and most of the other Slytherins had always celebrated the old traditions. It was a pure-blood custom and he was sure something Granger had never seen before. No other House celebrated the old ways.

His plan involved having her see him perform the old rituals of Imbolc. He was sure that with her thirst for knowledge she would want to know all about what he was doing. He had already pulled everything from the Hogwarts library on anything to do with the ancient rituals and traditions and pureblood customs. He wanted to be her only source of information. If he could force her to talk to him, he knew she would see him as something other than a junior Death Eater.

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On the morning of Imbolc, Draco took to the courtyard that was accessible only by the eighth year dorms. It was a perk of being older than the rest of the inhabitants in the castle, their own private courtyard. The sun hadn't quite risen yet, dawn was a few minutes away.

He had been watching Granger for months and knew her habits, she was an early riser. Always in the common room at dawn. She would study for an hour or so, and then go to breakfast right when it was served. He had heard her door open as he entered the courtyard, so he knew she was up. His plan was on track.

Draco started preparing the ritual circle. As he cleansed the courtyard he could see the faint markings of a circle having been invoked here in the past. That would make his job easier, it was always easier to invoke a circle on top of a past circle. The magic flowed better, it meant there was probably a ley line nearby. Hogwarts was crisscrossed with ley lines, it was one of the reasons the school was built here.

After cleansing the courtyard, Draco began making the circle. He followed the past circle, pouring sand out of the bag he had brought out with him. Once the circle was complete, he sat in the middle of it, his legs crossed underneath him, his hands flat on his knees. He kept his eyes closed as he said the ritual to the goddess Brigid under his breath.

As he finished, the sun was just peaking above the outer wall of the courtyard. He sat for a moment, enjoying the peace of the courtyard, he hadn't opened his eyes yet when he felt a rush of wind on his face and he thought he heard a woman's laugh. But it was gone before he could be sure that was what he heard. When he opened his eyes, he saw that the goddess had blessed him with a small spray of snowdrops.

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Hermione Granger had been watching Draco Malfoy on the second morning in February. They were both back to complete their eighth year. And Hermione had been feeling adrift most of the year because neither Harry nor Ron had come back with her. It was the first year she had been at Hogwarts without her best friends, and she missed them dearly. Neville was a dear, but he didn't quite make up for the absence of Harry and Ron.

Malfoy was in the courtyard, and he had made a ritual circle. Hermione racked her memory trying to remember what day today was that he would need to make a ritual circle. Imbolc, that's right, the goddess Brigid's day.

She didn't realize that Malfoy practiced the old ways, she hadn't paid him much attention in prior years. And this year she had been in a funk most of the year. But in the past few weeks she had caught Malfoy looking at her. His face was always blank, never giving anything away, and he never looked away, even after she caught his eye. So she started to get curious about him.

As he finished the ritual, a small posy of flowers appeared in front of him. Hermione furrowed her brow, he didn't have his wand out, how did he conjure them? She'd have to go to the library and see if their were any books on ritual magic. As he stood up, she turned away from the window and found a seat on one of the couches in the common room. She didn't want to be caught spying on him. She figured it would be considered rude to be caught observing what looked like a private ritual.

She opened her Potions text, they had double Potions first thing this morning, and she wanted to read through the brewing instructions for the shrinking solution they would be making that morning. As Malfoy came in, she surreptitiously viewed him over the top of her textbook. She let her curly brown hair fall in front of her face to obscure her gaze. He came in from the cold and took off his cloak, hanging it up on a hook by the door. Then Malfoy walked through the common room, when he caught her eye he nodded, he was carrying the small posy of flowers as he returned to his own room.

He had nodded to her, previously he had never even indicated that they had caught each other's eyes before. Just continued staring at her until one of them looked away. Why had he nodded? She was puzzled over his behavior this morning. Glancing at her watch she saw that breakfast was about to begin. Hermione put her potions book in her bag and headed to the Great Hall. She wanted to go to the library before Potions class to see if she could check out a book on ritual magic. Malfoy had made her curious.

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Hermione had spent too much time in the library and was almost late to Potions class. When she arrived, there was only one seat open, next to Malfoy. Not her usual partner, usually she partnered with a seventh year Ravenclaw, but she saw that Hannah Abbott was sitting with him today. She dropped her bag at her seat and pulled out her Potions text and some parchment and a quill. Professor Slughorn always liked to lecture for the first part of double Potions.

Hermione wasn't paying as close attention as she had in the past. She was frustrated, because while the library had loads of texts on ritual magic, every single one of them had been checked out. She had even looked to see if there were texts on pureblood customs, and all of those had been checked out too! She wondered if she was going to have to ask Malfoy about the ritual he had performed this morning.

After Professor Slughorn was done lecturing, he asked that they work in pairs for the shrinking solution. They worked in silence, neither saying a word as the completed the potion. They were one of the first pairs finished, Hermione had to admit that Malfoy knew his potions. He made for a pleasant partner if for nothing else than he was good. She bottled the solution and brought it to Professor Slughorn's desk as the class was leaving.

When she returned to her desk to gather her things, Malfoy had left already. But the posy that she had seen him conjure that morning, was lying on the desk in her spot. She didn't even see that he had it in class. There was a ribbon tied around it and attached to the ribbon was a small scrap of parchment. It had her name on it, and nothing else. Had he given these to her? Why? She looked around the classroom and saw that it was mostly empty, except for Professor Slughorn tidying up. She grabbed the posy and left the classroom to head to the Great Hall for lunch.

She didn't see Malfoy for the rest of the day, when she got back to the common room after dinner it was empty. Hermione decided to take advantage of the quiet and spread her books out on the coffee table in front of the fireplace. She sat on the floor between the couch and coffee table, working on a Transfiguration essay that was due next week. She had carried the small posy of snowdrops with her all day and had them in a vase transfigured from a hair clip on the coffee table when Malfoy walked into the common room from his bedroom.

"Granger," he said politely, sitting down on the arm chair closest to her, between her and the fire.

"Hello, Malfoy," Hermione replied, she put down her quill and looked up at him. It was so strange, she hadn't given him a second thought before a few weeks ago. And now he was leaving her flowers?

"They're a gift from the goddess Brigid," Malfoy said.

"What?" She had no idea what he was talking about.

"The spray of snowdrops," he nodded to the flowers he had given her.

"What do you mean, they're a gift from the goddess? How do you know?" Hermione had not done much reading on the old ways, so she was intensely curious.

"I felt her at the end of the ritual this morning. It was a warm breeze, and I think I heard her laugh," Malfoy shrugged at this last bit.

"Is that normal?" Hermione asked.

"It depends. I was thinking of someone during the ritual. When you invoke a ritual and have a specific idea or person in mind, the gods and goddesses tend to give gifts." He said it so nonchalantly, but Hermione was a little gobsmacked. A goddess had essentially answered Draco Malfoy's prayers. That seemed more than a little absurd to her.

"Why did you give them to me?" she asked.

Malfoy just looked at her, and raised his eyebrow, "Aren't you the brightest witch of your age?"

Hermione blushed, he had been thinking of her. Why? They had never had a conversation before, not really. Not before the one they were having right now.

"You were thinking of me, and the goddess gave you a posy of flowers to give to me?" Hermione asked a bit breathlessly. Nobody had ever given her flowers before.

Malfoy grinned then, it lit up his whole face when he did. He looked like a normal seventeen year old kid, when he grinned like that. Hermione couldn't help but to grin back in response.

"To be honest, I've been thinking about you all year," Malfoy told her, his grin softening.

"Why?" Hermione couldn't fathom why anyone would want to think about her. She was just a mousy, boring, swot.

"Because, I think you are beautiful, and fascinating, and I wanted to apologize, but I couldn't figure out how," Malfoy sounded sad, and he couldn't quite meet her gaze as he told her this.

"Apologize for what?" Hermione blushed at his words, she decided to concentrate on the last bit. Malfoy had been mean to her and the boys over the years, but Hermione had always figured that they had given as good as they got from Malfoy. She didn't think he needed to apologize for the schoolyard bullying.

"Are you going to make me list everything?" he asked her, raising an eyebrow. He pulled himself off the chair and sat next to her. His back against the front of the couch. He stretched his long legs out in front of him.

"You don't have anything to apologize for, I'm sure we were just as cruel to you," Hermione told him. This seemed to surprise Malfoy because he looked at her with mild shock, he recovered quickly though.

"All right then, friends?" He had his hand extended for her to shake, the look on his face was hopeful.

She grinned at him, "Yeah, friends." She took his hand and shook it. He returned her grin, but didn't let go of her hand. He brushed his thumb over the back of it, staring down at her hand. She bit her lip, she didn't want to admit, but it felt really nice to have Malfoy hold her hand.

"I meant what I said, Granger. I think you're beautiful," Malfoy said quietly. He wasn't meeting her eyes.

Hermione let out a nervous chuckle, "I can't imagine why." She shook her head to hide behind her hair as she gazed up at him. He met her eyes, and the look in his gray eyes took her breath away. He looked at her like she was the only person in the world, like she was all that mattered to him. He finally dropped her hand and used that hand to brush the hair out of her face, cupping her cheek. He brushed his thumb along her cheekbone and across her lips.

"You are magnificent," he told her, his eyes bouncing between her own eyes and her lips, he leaned forward. His lips hovering just over hers.

"May I kiss you, Hermione?" he asked very quietly, very softly, his gray eyes boring into her own. She didn't think she'd be able to speak, so she nodded. Previously, she had no desire to ever kiss Draco Malfoy, but the way he was looking at her now made her heart flutter in her chest. And his skin on hers was warm and electric. He lowered his lips a little more, ghosting over her own. Hermione couldn't stand the anticipation anymore and surged forward meeting his lips.

The kiss was short, but sweet. She pulled back, her eyes wide in surprise, Draco grinned at her as she licked her bottom lip. Then he dipped his head again meeting her lips. The hand holding her cheek went to the nape of her neck, tilting her head for a better angle. Hermione gasped, and he took advantage by dipping his tongue into her mouth, twirling it with her own. She sighed at the contact, relaxing into his hold.

He broke the kiss after a few moments.

"Maybe, more than friends?" he asked, she could hear the hope in his voice.

She nodded, grinning. Then leaned in for another kiss.

Fin.

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 **A/N: Let me know your thoughts!**


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